This Day...

This day be with me, Lord, when I go forth,
Be nearer to me than I am able to ask.
In merriment, in converse, or in task,
Walking the street, listening to men of worth,
Or greeting such as only talk and bask,
Be thy thought still my waiting soul around,
And if he come, I shall be watching found.

March 6th, Diary of an Old Soul, by George MacDonald

Crocheting Again

             

These little blue critters are a fun change to make after dozens of mittens. My friends and relatives keep having new little ones who will soon be ready to hang onto a whale tail or play ball with its soft, round body.

As I crochet I remember Lou, who was famous not only for the Loupads I wrote about in a previous post (here) but also made hundreds of little stuffed animals as gifts for children overseas. The eyes on my whales are just two sets out of dozens I got from Lou's stash after she died. She is still inspiring us!

Meanwhile, Elsa is cutting out Luopad pieces.

The Princess and Curdie

     

A spring project is complete: another audiobook is recorded, edited and published! Once again, Elsa was proof-listener and helped me clean up the final product.

If you are not familiar with MacDonald's books for children (which grow ever more meaningful to adults), this book is a sequel to The Princess and the Goblin. You can read an excerpt from that book in a previous post: A Roundabout Way

Another post tells more about George MacDonald.

To listen to the free LibriVox audiobook: click here
To hear a short sample: click here

Birthday Roses

Trim My Sails

Some more sailing thoughts...
from George MacDonald's Diary of an Old Soul:

Doubt swells and surges, with swelling doubt behind!

My soul in storm is but a tattered sail,

Streaming its ribbons on the torrent gale;

In calm, 'tis but a limp and flapping thing:

Oh, swell it with thy breath; make it a wing,

To sweep through thee the ocean, with thee the wind

Nor rest until in thee its haven it shall find.

'Tis--shall thy will be done for me--or mine,

And I be made a thing not after thine--

My own, and dear in paltriest details?

Shall I be born of God, or of mere man?

Be made like Christ, or on some other plan?

I let all run--set thou and trim my sails;

Home then my course, let blow whatever gales.

- entries from January 12th and February 21st

Sailing Again!

Five or more years after our sailboats were crushed by a collapsed barn roof, Dad brought home a new sailboat - a bright yellow tri-hull with three sails.

So far we have tried it out once, and we look forward to more sailing this summer.

What a joy to be on "our" old lake again - the lake where my paternal grandparents had a cabin for about 50 years; where I learned to swim and dive, to paddle a canoe and kayak, to row, and to sail.

This series of sailboat is new enough that we have the one-thousand-two-hundred-and-fourth Weta. They are designed in New Zealand and made in Indonesia, so our boat has already sailed across oceans, albeit in a container.

After a few years of research, Dad decided on this boat since it can be set up and launched by one person. But so far, we were glad to do much of the work as a team.

I am reminded of a poem my grandparents had hanging in their house:

One ship sails East,

And another West,

By the self-same winds that blow,

'Tis the set of the sails

And not the gales,

That tells the way we go.

Like the winds of the sea

Are the waves of time,

As we journey along through life,

'Tis the set of the soul,

That determines the goal,

And not the calm or the strife. 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Nothing Else Will Do

My Lord, I find that nothing else will do,
But follow where thou goest, sit at thy feet,
And where I have thee not, still run to meet.
Roses are scentless, hopeless are the morns,
Rest is but weakness, laughter crackling thorns,
If thou, the Truth, do not make them the true:
Thou are my life, O Christ, and nothing else will do.

George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul, February 4.

Flowers at my cousin's wedding